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Work Type:video installation
Date of work:1997
Style Period:contemporary art
Technique:video, editing, assemblage
Collection:Video Postive Archive 1989 - 2000
Description:
The Order of Things highlights the historical development of a scientific paradigm, informed and shaped by biological determinism, from the Victorian era to the present day, which came to dominate our everyday existence and to govern and inform the culture we live in.


Science transformed the human body into a set of comprehensible data to be analysed and known through its constituent parts; living beings are seen as being determined by internal factors, and the genes and our environment are determined by a whole set of anthropological data or 'anthropometry'. The installation considers how Science has created a process by which our perception of reality has been determined.


Through the use of an interactive autopsy table it encourages its audience to engage with this created perception of reality. The viewer is confronted with two reflections of the table, one through a mirror, the second via and electronic image. If the viewer then approaches to touch or look over the table the video image changes to show archive footage of Electro Convulsive Therapy being administrated. (SR).


With thanks to the University of Salford, Art and Design Research Division, Duncan Giles for computer programming Gary Dyson for construction and University College Manuscript Room.


Co-commissioned by FACT, Volcano and Gateshead Council.
New Commission.
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Source:"Video Positive 97: Escaping Gravity", festival catalogue
Date of source:1997